Archive for the ‘Harry Potter’ Category

Two scientists, John Howell and Joseph Choi, of the University of Rochester have taken a couple of lenses, set them in a particular configuration and tah-dah! You can now hide your Harry Potter puppet in plain sight without anyone ever judging you for have a Harry Potter puppet in the first place.

Led by their fearless pastor father, these girls are about to keep themselves in prime fighting condition by doin’ some exorcisin’ in the heart of paganville and the home of evil incarnate…Harry Potter and his wizard-breeding mother-figure JK Rowling.

Many, as the media buzz around these poster girls continues to skyrocket, believe that their father is the one driving this group of do-gooders in order to help sales of his merchandise including his ‘Crosses of Deliverance”.

One of the girls explains their mission:

‘It has been centuries in the making, but I believe it came to a pinnacle with the Harry Potter books. The spells you are reading about are not made up. They are real and come from witchcraft.’

Brace yourself, Europe. These ladies are gunnin’ for your precious Harry Potter and we can’t wait to see the battle scenes that the Internet creates.

Harry Potter had one. Frodo Baggins had one. Even Max from Disney Channel’s Wizards of Waverly Place had one.

In fact, just about every single geek on the planet at some point in their life has probably hypothesized about how cool it would be to have some kind of a cape or blanket that you could cover yourself in and become instantly invisible.

Right?

Well that might soon become a reality.

While we’re still going to have to keep to our hypothetical invisible scenarios in our grinning heads, it won’t be long until soldiers, special ops agents and even….uh…submarines…begin using something called ‘Quantum Stealth’ to get all Predator-like.

Guy Cramer, the president and CEO of Hyperstealth Biotechnology in Canada, is vaguely but loudly declaring that he’s developed an invisibility cloak-like material!

After checking his site and looking at the ‘mock-up’ photos on display, we’re secretly hoping this is a serious technology that’s about to put old-school camouflage in the closet. Poking around online to see if there was ANY hint at what Cramer is developing turned up nothing that actually shows off the technology. He’s claiming that if a soldier were wearing his top secret material you wouldn’t know he was there until you tripped over him.

You are involved in horrible car accident. Paramedics buzz around to make sure you make it to the hospital alive. You’re losing blood. If you don’t get more of the right time in you soon, things could take a turn for the worse.

But the on-the-scene help is panicked. Many are new. They have to determine your blood type in the field, a life or death decision.

Which is where Harry Potter comes in.

A brand new invention, inspired by the young wizard’s tales. It’s a piece of paper that which reveals what blood type it has come in contact with. Instant, easy to decipher and creepy as all get out.

The device consists of a sensor made from a tiny piece of paper, coated with a hydrophobic, water-repellent, layer, but four “windows” are left without it, making them prone to absorb liquid.

Each area is shaped differently; for instance, one has the shape of the letter A, another – the shape of the letter B.

These areas are filled with antibodies that interact with red blood cells, making them clump together, or agglutinate, depending on the blood type.

Not to be a picky muggle, I think they mean the inspiration for this would be Tom Riddle’s diary from Chamber of Secret, which wrote back to someone writing in it or possibly the Marauder’s Map which laid invisible until the right unlocking spell was cast.

Seriously, compare the skull you see above to the massive dragon skulls found in the subterranean pathways of King’s Landing in HBO’s Game of Thrones.

While it is inconclusive that Dracorex ever consorted with the House Targaryen or reduced cities and armies alike to smoldering ash, what is clear is how much the shape this herbivore bares a resemblance to our common understanding of a fictional dragon. The skull was first donated for study in 2004 and was formally described first in 2006.

Meanwhile, the beast has a more permanent connection to yet another popular fantasy franchise. The official name for Dracorex is Dracorex hogwartsia. This was inspired by young visitors to the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis, where it was official donated, who kept referring to it as the dragon from the book and subsequent 2005 film adaptation Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

This thrilled author J.K. Rowling…

“I am absolutely thrilled to think that Hogwarts has made a small (claw?) mark upon the fascinating world of dinosaurs. I happen to know more on the subject of paleontology than many might credit, because my eldest daughter was Utahraptor-obsessed and I am now living with a passionate Tyrannosaurus rex-lover, aged three. My credibility has soared within my science-loving family, and I am very much looking forward to reading Dr. Bakker’s paper describing ‘my’ dinosaur, which I can’t help visualising as a slightly less pyromaniac Hungarian Horntail.”

But the question remains, is Dracorex really even its own species?

All around dinosaur badass authority and HPIC (Head Paleontologist In Charge) of our hearts Jack Horner says the beast is probably just a juvenile version of the well documented dino Pachycephalosaurus which looks decidedly less dragon-esqe.

In fact, he has an awesome TEDx talk going into the phenomenon of misclassification and our misunderstanding of “shape shifting” dinosaurs.

So what came first? Our modern dragon myth that looks like Dracorex? Or did Dracorex shape the myth? Is Dracorex even really Dracorex?

No matter what, we now know something that Daenerys Targaryen, Jack Horner and Harry Potter have in common. Which is pretty awesome.